You're Worth the Trouble (and You're Worth the Pain)
by acaelousqueadcentrum
Summary: High school AU. Holly is Steve's high school girlfriend.
1. Soft (Cause We've All Seen You Dancing)

Gail Peck is a freshman in high school when her older brother Steve, a senior, brings home his new girlfriend. Actually, the first time Steve brings home Holly, who'd just moved to Toronto from upstate New York, Gail isn't home at all. She's at cross-country practice, an activity she only joined to get her mother off her back. But all she hears about for the next several days is how nice Holly is, how smart Holly is, how pretty Holly is. The "I wish you'd be a little more like Holly, Gail" is inevitable, and Gail actually has to bite her tongue the first time her mother says it so that she doesn't respond with some sarcastic remark. Something like "Well, then I'd be dating my brother, mom." Or worse.

The first time Gail actually meets Holly, she's already half-way to hating her. Except Holly is just too damn nice to hate, no matter how hard Gail tries. She has this way of brushing off every sideways comment, every under-the-breath mutter that Gail throws her way. She is just as nice and pretty and smart as Elaine yammered on about. She says please and thank you, and offers to help with the dishes. She talks about wanting to be a doctor, and she should be a junior but she skipped a grade and is going to graduate just after her seventeenth birthday.

And unlike Gail, who is just losing the last of her childhood chubbiness, and is having a hard enough time figuring out who she wants to be much less what she wants to look like, Holly seems to have never had an awkward period. She's tall and thin and her long dark hair falls in waves over her shoulders. She has a style that's all her own, jeans and long sweaters and shirts that hug the breasts that Gail catches Steve staring at one night at the dinner table. Gail immediately falls in love with the dark brown leather boots that Holly wears most days, and tries to think of a non-weird way to ask where she got them so she can blow her leftover babysitting money on a pair for herself.

Holly's around a lot, hanging out in the basement den with Steve, reading in the hammock while he lifts weight on the patios, or studying at the kitchen table with him. She becomes a pretty frequent dinner guest, something Elaine doesn't complain about like she had for his previous girlfriends, dropping halfway offensive comments into every conversation. Things like wondering if the girl's parents even noticed that she wasn't home, or didn't she have better things to do. But Holly, it seems their mother has decided, is an excellent influence on Steve. And on Gail as well.

And therefore Holly can stay as long as she wants.

In fact, after finding out that her daughter was having trouble in her maths course, Elaine enlists Holly's help as a tutor. And so after dinner, Holly and Gail sit at the kitchen table and work through proof after proof. Because apparently it's not good enough to say something's a triangle or a circle.

Apparently Gail has to prove it now.

And just pointing out that it has three sides isn't enough. There are all sorts of complicated steps.

It drives Gail insane.

Anyone can see it's a bloody triangle.

Holly just laughs at her when the blonde gets frustrated and, with her endless well of patience, walks Gail through the process again.

And despite her initial reservations, mostly spurred on by Elaine's approval of the girl, Gail grows to like Holly. She and Steve make a good pair, Gail thinks, and they seem to really enjoy each other's company, always laughing and poking fun at each other. And unlike Steve's earlier girlfriends, Holly doesn't ignore Gail. She takes the time to poke her head into Gail's room and say hello when walking past toward Steve's at the end of the hall. She asks Gail how cross-country is at dinner—how she enjoys the sport, and not just what her latest times are. And when Gail worked up the courage to ask about the boots, it was Holly who took her to the mall to buy a pair.

But for all they see each other at the Peck house, Gail and Holly don't cross paths much in school. Gail's mostly in the freshman classes and rarely has a reason to wander into the upper class hallways.

But on her birthday she finds Holly waiting by her locker with a frosted cupcake and a small wrapped box. The cupcake is delicious—chocolate chip with mint frosting—and Gail eats it with big bites. The best part, though, is what's inside the box. Two tickets to a concert that Gail has secretly been dying to go to but hasn't brought up to her parents yet. The bell rings at that moment, and Gail can only quickly stumble over a "thank you" before she has to run to her first period class.

She spends the day thinking about Holly and this unexpected gift. She only really knows about the band because of the cd her brother's girlfriend accidentally left in Steve's car one day. Gail had almost stepped on it getting into the front seat on the way to school one morning, and curious about what kind of band would put a naked woman in the bath and a stuffed tiger nursing at her breast on their album cover, she'd popped it into the car's cd player. Steve had groaned, his kind of music leaned more toward the Smashing Pumpkins and Green Day, but he didn't tell her to turn it off. When they pulled up in front of Holly's house, and Gail reluctantly dragged herself into the back seat, the cd was still playing.

"Oh," Holly had said as she kissed Steve's cheek, "I wondered where I left this. Have you finally decided to give some real music a try?"

Steve had laughed and rubbed his hand up against the side of his face, "Nope. Gail found it under the seat and put it on."

And that's how it started. Holly turned around in her seat, as much as the seatbelt would let her, and told Gail all about the band, Belle &amp; Sebastian, and how hard she'd had to search to find a copy of their first album. Gail tried not to be interested, tried to pretend that she agreed with Steve about the music, but the truth was she really did like it. She liked the soft male voice, the hint of horns, the way all the notes seemed to glide together. It's what she imagined flying felt like, but with sound. Smooth, weightless, nothing but clouds and the horizon.

So when Holly offered to loan her the cd, and the two others she had, Gail took her up on it with a barely disguised enthusiasm.

Since then their morning rides to school have been filled with talk about the music they like, trading cds back and forth while Steve moans and groans about not being able to listen to what he wants to. But they ignore him, and go back to their discussions.

Two weeks ago Holly mentioned that Belle &amp; Sebastian were coming to a club downtown for a concert during the school holidays. Since then Gail has been trying to think of some way to get her mother to let her go. Elaine would balk, she knew, at her fourteen-year-old daughter going to any sort of concert, much less one at a club in downtown Toronto. And there was no way that Gail was going to ask her mother to take her there, and have to sit through Elaine's complaints about what a waste of time it was, or make comments about the kind of people who listened to this kind of music.

Maybe, she had thought, maybe she could bribe Steve into offering to take her, and maybe Elaine would be cool with that. But Gail wasn't confident enough in any of the dirt she had on her older brother. None of it was big enough to trade for this kind of a favor, not even the story of the time she found empty beer bottles in the trunk of his car. And since he didn't even like the music, it's not like he would volunteer to accompany her to the concert.

It was still early though. And at least she didn't have to ask her mother for permission to buy the tickets now—something Elaine would certainly roll her eyes at and suggest, none-too-subtly, that Gail put the money in her savings account or toward something more reasonable. No, she had her tickets, thanks to Holly.

Thanks to a birthday gift that she wasn't expecting from someone with no obligation to do anything for her.

She thinks about the gift all day long. All through her classes, through practice after school. She forces herself not to look in the box again, to leave it in her backpack and pretend to be interested in everything else going on. But she can't stop herself from hearing the music in her head, louder than the voice of the teacher at the front of the class, the chatter of her classmates and friends. The familiar soundtrack accompanies her all throughout her day.

It isn't until much later, as she lays on her bed after forcing down cake with her parents and opening her presents—a check from her parents and a goofy alarm clock from Steve—that she notices the other object in the box. She's laying on her back, turning the small box over and over in her hands, noting how carefully Holly had wrapped it. Gail takes the cover off again, just so she can pull out the tickets and look at them, try to figure out how to get her mother to let her go, and a flash of silver catches her eye.

There, almost hidden under the tissue paper, almost like an after-thought, is a homemade cd. It's unlabeled but for the "For Gail, Happy Birthday," scrawled across the top in a surprisingly messy hand, and so Gail has no idea what to expect when she pops it in her portable cd player and slips the headphones over her ears.

As she closes her eyes and listens to the songs she's never heard before, she thinks of Holly. She can't stop herself from picturing the girl standing next to her locker, standing there and waiting for her. Holly with her nervous, crooked smile. The excited way she'd pushed the present into Gail's hands, how she'd pulled Gail into a hug before leaving, holding the blonde-haired girl close and tight for a few short seconds. The scent of lemon in her long, dark hair and the sparkle of her brown eyes as she gently wished Gail a happy birthday before turning to leave.

And as she lay there listening, falling in love with each new song that Holly had chosen for her, Gail feels her stomach twist and turn, feels it grow heavy and aching.

Too much cake, she thinks to herself as she rolls over and starts the cd again.

* * *

She ends up asking Holly to go to the concert with her. And because Holly is going, and because Holly has yet to do any wrong in Elaine's eyes, Gail is allowed to go to the club downtown.

They take the subway downtown to the club, which Holly has informed Elaine is really more of a coffee shop than anything else.

It's a Friday night a little more than a week before Christmas, and the subway is busy, but not overcrowded. After a few stops, two seats open up in the middle of the car and Gail rushes for them, elbowing a couple of college-aged guys out of the way while Holly laughs at her antics. They're both excited, and have been all day. It's not the first concert that Holly's been to—just the first for this band—but it is Gail's first, and she's been trying to play it cool, not wanting to seem lame. But she's pretty sure Holly can see right through her. She's probably been able to see through her all day long. Probably since the moment she arrived at the Peck's front door earlier that afternoon.

For once, Holly hadn't come over to hang out with Steve. Steve was gone for the weekend, out skiing with one of their cousins. This time Holly had come over to spend time with Gail, to hang upside down off the couch in the basement and listen one last time to the cds before hearing the music live at the concert that night.

They ate grilled cheese sandwiches and listened to every track, singing along, trying to guess what the playlist for the concert would be. Gail hoped they'd play "Is It Wicked Not To Care" from their latest album, but Holly was hoping they'd hear "Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying."

No matter what, they were both sure that the night would be one they'd never forget.

Now, sitting on the train, sharing the ear buds to Holly's cd-player and listening to their favorite songs one last time, Gail is having a hard time keeping still. Her fingers dance along with the song's rise and fall on her jean-covered thighs, and her feet tap along with the bass. She's not a fidgety person, but for some reason, sitting so close to Holly, feeling the warmth of the other girl's thigh against her own, smelling the sweet fragrance of her shampoo, her hair, it makes Gail anxious. It makes her want to move—not away, she can't explain it but she doesn't want to lose that heat, that scent—but move her body.

She can't wait until they get to the concert.

She just wants to dance, to let the music move through her and take over.

* * *

The concert is extraordinary. Gail's never experienced anything like it.

It wasn't wild or full of pot-smoking hippies, like Elaine predicted. It's a bunch of college-aged people drinking tiny espressos and lounging back on old beat-up couches. The kind of couches you see on the side of the road, just waiting for the garbage people to come and pick them up.

She and Holly grab a love-seat covered in a dusky rose velvet. It's just big enough for the two of them, and it's so old and worn-in that Gail kind of falls into Holly if she stops paying attention to what her body's doing. Holly grabs them some coffee, and they sink back into the comfy cushions while they wait.

Soon enough the band is out onstage, and then they're playing the first song, and Gail, again, just can't seem to sit still.

She taps her fingers along with the lyrics, singing along in her head, as gently bobs her head. No one else is dancing, so she stays where she is, just enjoying the music that she loves with the girl she's starting to think of as a friend.

But a few songs in, her jitters must start to bother Holly, because the older girl gently takes her hand and folds it into her own. And for the next several minutes they sit like that, hand in hand, the warmth of Holly's fingers radiating up Gail's arm, until Holly jerks and slowly pulls her hand away.

And maybe it's nothing, maybe it's just that the band has started to play one of their more upbeat songs and people are starting to stand. Or maybe Holly realized what she'd done and thought better of it, maybe she's used to holding Steve's hand and wishes he were here instead. But whatever the reason, Gail feels the absence of Holly's fingers against her own keenly, feels the ghost of their warmth in the draft from the door.

And because she's not sure why it bothers her, because it bothers her that she's bothered, she stands with the rest of the crowd and starts to dance, leaving Holly to sit on the couch alone.

* * *

The subway station is packed on the way back. Gail's still burning off the energy of the concert, eyes closed and swaying back and forth on the platform as she replays her favorite moments in her head. Holly, though, is alert, and quiet. She's been quiet since that odd little moment on the couch, when she shivered and yanked her hand out of Gail's. Not unfriendly, just different. Maybe a little distant, like there's something on her mind that's taking up most of her attention.

It's making Gail feel odd, making her wonder if she's done something wrong. But she's pretending everything's okay.

Gail Peck is very good at pretending everything's okay.

Their train arrives and they squeeze into one of the cars. Gail pushes through the full car and finds a little bit of space near the back. But it's not much, and at every stop more people get on than off. She finds herself pressed tightly between Holly and a pair of guys a few years older than Steve.

They smell of beer and sweat, and look down at her with loose grins. And Gail would be uncomfortable, but before she knows it, Holly's switching places with her, putting Gail up against the wall of the car and herself in front of the men. "She's fourteen," Holly says, glaring, and their smiles wilt away as they turn, stuttering apologies into the hot mass of bodies.

Convinced that the men will leave Gail alone now, Holly turns again. They're face to face now, and Holly dips her head to say something in Gail's ear, but someone else must have stepped into the car, because the bodies surrounding them shift and jostle them until Holly's front is pressed tightly against Gail's.

She laughs, and dips her head again so that Gail can hear her speak over the din of the people around them.

"We probably shouldn't have turned down your dad when he offered to pick us up," she says, and Gail laughs in response.

"Nah," Gail answers back, rising on her toes to speak into Holly's ear, "this is more fun."

And it is. It's an adventure. Something that Gail hasn't really been allowed to have much of yet. Not with the short leash Elaine keeps her on. This, though, first the concert and now the busy trip home? This is fun. This is exciting.

The train takes a curve, and the change in momentum throws Holly against Gail again. Holly must lose her footing, because she doesn't recover right away. The train shifts again, and Gail feels Holly's leg tangle with her own, feels her own thigh trapped between the older girl's as she struggles to help Holly stay on her feet.

Gail feels the heat build in deep within her belly like a sinkhole, feels the charge of electricity shoot out from her center up her back, into her fingertips, her toes. She knows what the feeling is, has felt what it means to be aroused before, has felt little tides of warmth at the sight of intertwined bodies in the movies or on tv. But never this, never like this. Never so powerful and intense.

She's embarrassed and ashamed, and grateful that the lights in the back of the train car seem to be burnt out. She hopes Holly can't see the flush of red bloom over her face.

This is Holly. This is her brother's girlfriend. This is a girl.

She shouldn't be feeling this, shouldn't be wanting to shift and slide herself along Holly's strong thigh. Shouldn't want to lean into the other woman, wrap her arms around her and hold tight. Shouldn't be wondering what it would feel like to kiss her, to have Holly's lips brush against her own.

* * *

Eventually Holly regains her balance and some people disembark, giving them a little more room.

But as much as Gail had hoped and prayed that Holly didn't notice her reaction to being so close, she knows the other girl did. There's no other explanation for the awkwardness between them now, for why Holly won't meet her eyes, why the other girl's hands are curled into fists and shoved forcefully into the pockets of her jacket.

Everything had been perfect tonight. Everything had been amazing, wonderful, a dream.

And now Gail's ruined it. Now the memory of her favorite band is tainted by the horror of what happened in the train car, how she'd acted when Holly had fallen against her.

Holly must hate her. Must be dying to go home and call Steve and laugh about how stupid his little sister is, how embarrassing.

They don't speak for the rest of the ride home, and when Gail's father picks them up from the train station and asks how the concert had gone, Gail gives him a half-hearted "fine."

In her bed later, finally home, Gail resolves two things. First, that she'll never listen to Belle and Sebastian ever again. And second, that she'll avoid Holly as best as she can, and ignore her completely when she can't.

It's the only way, she thinks, to forget that any of this ever happened.


	2. We Know You Are (Interlude)

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," Holly whispers angrily as she slams the front door behind her. The house is quiet, and dark but for the momentary flash of headlights from Mr. Peck's car as he pulls out of the drive. Her parents must have already gone to bed.

She's torn between being grateful that there's no one around to see the tears running down her face, and wanting to bury her head into her mother's soft arms and let her mom soothe away the hurt. For a moment, she thinks about knocking on her parents' bedroom door and waking them up, just so she can talk to someone.

But as much as she might want to, she doesn't. It's better this way. Better that she's alone so she doesn't have to explain what's wrong. Because she's not even sure that she could. Explaining would mean saying things, saying them out loud. Things Holly hasn't even said aloud to herself yet.

And it would mean admitting what happened tonight with Gail, and there's no way Holly can do that. She can't tell anyone what happened. She absolutely cannot tell anyone what almost happened with her boyfriend's fourteen-year-old sister.

She just can't.

In her room, Holly rips off her jacket and throws it onto the back of her desk chair, kicking off her shoes as she collapses face-down on her bed, using a pillow to muffle her cries. The evening's losses pull and drag at her lungs, until she can barely breathe between the crying hiccoughs and the mucus in her throat, in her nose.

Everything is lost now. Everything is broken.

Why did I have to ruin it, Holly thinks to herself, clenching her fists until her nails bit into the flesh of her palms. Why do I have to go and ruin the best things?

She can't ruin this, she won't.

She has to fix it.

She has to make it right.

* * *

Ignoring Holly turns out to be a lot easier than Gail had anticipated. Because by some stroke of luck, Holly seems to have had the same idea. There's three weeks between their return after the New Year and the end of the fall term, and somehow, somehow, the only time Gail sees Holly is once. From across the campus as the taller girl boards the city bus that will take her home. They don't pick her up in the morning anymore. Steve won't talk about it, but she knows that they've broken up.

And she feels bad, she feels really bad. Because this is all her fault. Holly and Steve broke up because of her. Because when they were pushed up against the back of the subway car after the concert, Gail's whole body erupted in flames, her cheeks flushed with desire—she can name it now, it was desire—and she couldn't stop staring at Holly's lips.

She feels bad because Holly is avoiding her as much as she is avoiding Holly. Because Steve is moody and quiet. Because Elaine won't shut up about how Steve screwed up and couldn't keep a girl who was finally good enough for him. Because suddenly their house is even more tense than normal.

Nobody seems to notice Gail's own private crisis. No one seems to care that she's suddenly confused about everything, reevaluating everything. For once, for once no one is focused on Gail and the terrible thing?

This is the one time in her life that she really wants them to. She wants them to see that she's struggling, to call her out on it and tell her that she's better than this, that she's a Peck and nothing makes a Peck doubt themselves.

But no one does.

No one.

* * *

Avoiding Holly becomes easier after the long weekend break between semesters. Because when school starts up again on the Monday after exams, Holly is gone.

There's no lock on her locker.

There's an empty seat in all of her classes.

An empty space on the roll where her name should have been.

The teachers, the administration, they can only say that she's no longer a student. Not why she's left, or where she's moved on to. The house—her parents—well, everything's locked up, dark.

Everything should feel normal again.

Gail should feel normal again.

But she doesn't.

She's afraid she'll never feel normal again.

She's more afraid that she will.

When the package comes, brown paper tied with string and Holly's address written in her handwriting in the top corner, Gail doesn't open it for days. Just stares at it, at her name in bold, black marker.

She traces her fingers over the lines, plays with the ends of the string until they're fraying under her touch.

And then finally, after a few weeks of looking, of staring, of touching, finally she opens it.

The sweatshirt, the warm hoodie that fills the empty space of the box, is Steve's. His name is written across the back in big, block letters. She looks at it and wonders why Holly's sent this to her, and not her brother. Why she's supposed to give Steve his big, smelly sweatshirt back, why Holly couldn't have just written her brother's name on the package.

But then she pulls it out of the box, and feels the hard lump of something else underneath, wrapped within the soft material of the hoodie.

There's a stack of CDs that Gail recognizes immediately—she's borrowed them enough—neatly organized and rubber-banded with care.

And on top, a slip of paper tucked under the rubberband.

Just two words.

"I'm sorry."


	3. Hard (Cause We've All Seen You Drinking)

Holly Stewart is just two weeks into her new job when her past and her present collide.

"Holly," a voice calls out from across the hall of the Police Administration building, heels sharp against the cool marble floor, "Holly Stewart?"

A red-haired woman walks purposefully across the hall, an epitome of efficiency and professionalism in her crisp uniform.

Suddenly Holly isn't thirty-three with a house and a job and a reputation for being one of the top forensic pathologists east of Saskatchewan. No, suddenly she's seventeen again and meeting her new boyfriend's mother for the first time, sweaty hands and dry mouth and everything. Suddenly her pulse is racing and her stomach is swirling and she's wants nothing more than to walk very quickly in the opposite direction because even though she'd considered the chances of this very scenario occurring, she thought she'd have a bit more luck, or at the least, a bit more time.

"Holly Stewart, it is you," the woman says and Holly shakes herself back into the present, trading memories tinged in the sepia hues of regret for the vibrant here and now.

"Mrs.—Detective Peck," Holly says in a polite voice, pleased she's managed to speak without stammering, "it's been a long time."

"It's Superintendent now, but you can just call me Elaine," she responds, her cheerful tone masking the blue steel Holly knows hides just beneath the surface, "what has it been, fifteen years?"

Elaine takes her arm and continues to chatter on as she starts walking further into the building. Holly, trapped by manners and memories, is helpless not to go along.

"…saw the name of the new pathologist the chief was raving about on the agenda for today's Police Services Board meeting and I couldn't help but wonder if it could be the same Holly from all those years ago. Of course, it could have been anyone…"

Holly's not really listening. Instead, she's chastising herself for ever thinking that this could have been avoided, for forgetting just how embedded into the community of law enforcement the Peck family always had been. For deluding herself into thinking that just because Toronto had almost three million citizens, just because the police force was the third largest in the whole nation, she could have ever, ever avoided this moment, her past.

Still, she thought to herself as they neared the room where she would be officially introduced to the Police Board, it could have been worse. It could have been—

"…-ven, as you may know, is now a detective. We're so proud. He's been doing excellent work in the Guns and Gangs division. We expect him to be promoted any time now. He's still single, you know. He dates here and there, but no one of consequence, really. Not in years. And then there's Gail, who, despite—oh, well, here we are."

Elaine points to a row of chairs sitting to the side of the room and is in the middle of saying something about having to find a time to catch up when her face lights up and Holly knows, just knows, that this isn't going to end well for her.

"Now," she says, "I just had an idea. It's perfect. You'll come over for dinner tonight—Bill and I try to have the children over at least once a month, keep up to date on their lives. We'd never hear anything from them otherwise, you know how they are. We can all catch up—I'll send Steven a note now just to let him know we're having a special guest tonight. We'll go straight after the meeting lets out."

There's no chance for Holly to get a word in edgewise. Not to remind her of the less-than-ideal circumstances of her break-up with Steve all those years ago—completely disappearing was a particularly adolescent tactic that she was in no way proud of. Not to head off the scheme she can see brewing in Elaine's clear, calculating eyes. Not even to stand up for herself and say "Thanks, but no thanks" or even take the coward's way out and pretend she's already got plans for the evening.

No, this woman is worse than a bulldozer.

Some things, Holly thinks, never change.

But then again, she knows, others do.

* * *

From the outside, the house is the same—grand, looming.

But inside, Holly has no idea. The room she's standing in now was never on the list of "approved for teenagers" spaces back when she was dating Steve. And now, she's pretty sure, the half-finished room in the basement where she and Steve spent most of their time is off-limits. She wonders how it looks now, if the lumpy couch and threadbare rug are still there. If Bill ever got around to finishing it, painting the walls and putting that carpet he was always talking about in. She wonders if Steve's room is still dark and musty, trophies lined up on the shelves, if it smells of old socks and deodorant. She wonders if Gail's still seems so empty, so bare of the love and humor and quirks she saw simmering beneath the teenager's skin all those years ago. She wonders if Gail ever figured out who she was, what she wanted, or if the shadow of her mother still clouds her eyes.

In the parlor, Holly stands and takes everything in. The collection of old books, some clearly well-loved and others barely touched. The stiff-looking furniture, the soft yellow glow of the lamps on the dark woods. A row of pictures neatly arranged on the mantel of the fireplace catches her eye, and she moves to look.

All the expected pictures are there—Bill and Elaine on their wedding day, portraits of the children as babies, a professional family portrait that must have been taken around Steve's graduation from college or Gail's from high school. Holly spends a few minutes looking at that one, the fly-away red hair that Steve would never let his mother talk him into cutting, Elaine's intense presence next to Bill's more relaxed frame. And Gail, her brilliant blue eyes somehow dark and brooding. If Holly closes her eyes she can see the aftermath of the photo so clearly, Gail shrugging her mother's hand off her shoulder, Steve rolling his eyes as Elaine tells them "just one more shot and this time, act like a Peck" for the third or fourth or fifth time.

The left side of the mantel, though, is a trip through Peck family policing. Generation after generation of graduation portraits, Pecks in their dress blues and stiff caps. Faces stern and eyes piercingly intense. She remembers Steve talking about the family tradition, about how it was expected that he'd follow in the footsteps of his elders. And how he was okay with it, how he'd only ever wanted to be a police officer anyway—just like his dad, like his uncles, like his grandfather. He did it then, she thinks, looking at his young face in the photo, the spark of mischief in his eye and the slightest curl of a grin around his mouth. He looks happy.

And then, last in the long line of Pecks, there's Gail.

Holly is surprised, honestly so.

The Gail she remembers never had a plan picked out for her life, except that it wasn't going to be this, falling in line and following the well-blazed trail of Pecks into the force. And yet, there she is. So different than the girl of Holly's memories, but still the same eyes, a shock of blue no less vibrant now. Older, true, a face that's thinner and wiser, that's lost the last pudge of childhood that used to sit around Gail's cheeks, her chin. But still the hard line of a surly pout, still the delicacy and the strength, the defiance.

She was beautiful then, Holly knows, and thinks back to a forbidden moment. Flushed cheeks and a wide, free smile. The press of bodies and a swaying rumble underfoot as they struggled to breathe in the hot, stale air.

She's even more so now, Holly sees as the picture fills in all the blanks, all the parts of the other woman that Holly had wondered about in the years since, in the years of trying not to. She's grown into herself, Holly thinks, and smiles softly.

It's a struggle not to reach out and touch the photo, to run her fingers along the contours of Gail's grown-up face and pretend she's real. Pretend Gail's here and warm under her fingertips. If she closes her eyes, Holly thinks, she can almost conjure the memory of scent, that comforting bouquet of wood and spice and life that was so uniquely Gail.

But then there's a commotion behind her, a rapid whispering, and the memory is gone.

Holly backs away from the mantel and the photographs and braces herself for an awkward reunion, giving herself a little pep talk.

"You can do this," her head says to her heart.

If only she believed it.

* * *

"Steven, you remember Holly," Elaine says as he struggles to put a name to her face.

Holly's anxiety eases a little bit, right alongside her guilt. She's not even insulted that it takes him a moment to remember who she is. Who she was.

But then he smiles wide and she can see the pieces falling into place—she always could read him, that hasn't changed—and suddenly she's being pulled into a hug.

He's gotten bigger—taller, and heavier. No longer the lean boy she once knew, Steve's grown into a man. But his arms are still soft and comfortable and warm, and she still feels safe inside of them.

She's always felt safe with him.

It just took her a while to learn the difference between safety and love.

"I'll let you two get reacquainted while I make sure your father hasn't overcooked the steak," Elaine says, none-too-subtly, and turns to leave.

Steve rolls his eyes and gives her a sheepish smile and something in Holly settles, falls back into place for the first time since she left this city all those years ago. She's missed this man.

There are things to tell him and things to ask forgiveness for, but right now, standing in his childhood home, she thinks that maybe there's a chance for forgiveness, for moving on and moving forward.

They're not long into their conversation, filling each other in on half a lifetime of history, when there's a thunder of footsteps in the hall and then a voice from just past the door that makes Holly's lungs deflate and her shoulders droop.

"Hey, butthead," Gail's voice says, "did you get Elaine's text? Did you hear who she invited—"

* * *

Dinner is tense.

At least it seems that way to Holly.

Elaine and Bill don't seem to notice anything, and she's doing her best not to let Gail's silence and glares bother her.

But they do. Of course they do.

Steve helps. He keeps the conversation going, and suddenly he's taking them all down memory lane as one half-remembered story inspires another. She and Steve had only dated for a few months—half a summer and then the fall—but they'd crammed a lot of fun into those days and weeks.

And it is kind of fun to watch Elaine's eyes bulge at just how much Steve managed to get away with even under her ever-present and watchful eye. Even Gail laughs, forgetting that she's angry, when Steve asks if she remembers the party he threw at the house one weekend when Bill and Elaine were at some police convention or training.

"Of course I do," Gail chips in, her eyes smiling as she pulls apart another roll, "you didn't have time to take all the empty cans and bottles to the dump so you shoved them all in your trunk and then somehow managed to convince Dad that the rattling sound was your muffler."

Even Bill laughs at that, though Elaine just purses her lips and narrows her eyes.

"Well," she sort of stutters, clearly at a loss for what to say, and the three of you start to laugh even harder.

It feels just like old times.

Until Elaine brings up the concert, wondering if that was some sort of shenanigans as well, and Gail goes silent again. Holly can feel the smolder of her anger all the way across the table.

"No," she says slowly, "that was just a concert like we said."

Elaine nods her head, "Good. For a moment I wondered whether you weren't the good influence I thought you were all those years ago."

"No," Steve comes to the rescue, "I was the bad influence. With my fast car and my rock and roll."

* * *

Dinner goes smoothly after that and then Holly finds herself pulled into a stiff but polite embrace by Elaine as she's standing at the door, waiting for Steve who has been "volunteered" to drive her home.

"Holly," she says, "it's been so nice to have you in our home again. We really did miss you when you moved away so suddenly. Even Gail—the girl moped for months. I told Bill once that it was almost like she'd been broken up with, she seemed so forlorn after you left."

"Mom," Steve interrupts, "that's enough. I've got to swing by the station on the way and I'm sure Holly would like to get home."

Elaine nods. "Alright, then. But where's your sister, she should say goodbye. I swear, Steven, that girl—"

"It's okay, Elaine," Holly tries to interrupt, but Steve puts a hand on her shoulder.

"She's already gone, said she needed to put the boys to bed," he tells Elaine, who just sighs and shakes her head.

And then they're out the door and free at last.

Holly takes a deep breath of the fresh night air, lets it sink in and cool her aching lungs. She laughs when Steve does the same.

* * *

The ride is quiet but for the Smashing Pumpkins song on the radio, and Holly smiles.

"Your taste in music hasn't gotten any better," Steve says with a sly smirk.

"Neither has yours, apparently," she answers back without missing a beat.

This, the two of them in the car, these were always their best moments. And Holly rests her head back against the seat and wonders why she ever wanted more.

"So," Steve starts, "you're back."

"Steve, I—" Holly tries to say, but he stops her.

"It's okay, Holly. You don't have to apologize. Not for anything. It's all water under the bridge. But I should apologize for Elaine. She's clearly trying to get us back together but, to be completely honest with you, I'm seeing someone. It's not serious yet, but I'd like it to be. I just haven't told Ma about it yet—so she keeps finding women to introduce me to."

"Don't worry about it," she says, and looks over to give him a smile, "but there's something I should tell you."

Holly takes a deep breath. She's done this a million times, come out to her parents, her extended family, her friends, classmates and coworkers. She's so used to coming out to people now that it comes as a surprise when she realizes how nervous she is. It feels like so much depends on this one, this coming out.

And maybe it's because they used to be something, back when they were really no more than children. Back before they truly, honestly, knew who they were. Before they'd truly experienced the world.

Or maybe it's because she really, truly, cares about this man, about the children they were and the friends she'd like them to be again.

"I'm a lesbian, Steve," she says, surprised at how normal her voice sounds.

He's quiet for a moment as they sit at a red light a few blocks from his parents' house, and then he turns to her and gives her a gentle smile.

"Well, maybe Elaine can find a woman for you then," he says, and they laugh together.

She sees the question form before it even reaches his lips.

"No, I didn't know when we were dating. At most," she tells him, "at the most I'd realized that I was different. I'd had a crush, I guess, on a girl at my school in New York, but I'd just written it off."

"Are you happy," he asks, "I mean, are you—"

Holly knows what he means. "I am," she says, and when he says "Good" as the light changes, she knows he means it.

* * *

They're still a few blocks from where she parked her car earlier, and Holly knows she's not going to be able to say goodbye without asking the question that's been on her mind since they left the house.

"So," she says, swallowing against the ball in her throat, "your sister has kids?"

Steve glances at her out of the side of his eye. "What," he asks, "are you crazy? Gail? Kids?"

"You said she went home to put the boys to bed," Holly reminds him.

"Oh," he says and grins, "her roommates. She lives in a dump with two guys from her rookie class. Calls them all sorts of names—"boys" is probably the tamest. They're good guys, they watch after her. She went to pick them up from the Penny—and don't mind her mood."

"She did seem rather upset that I was there," Holly replies, but doesn't tell him that she might have any idea why. She wants to. She wants to talk to him about what had happened all those years ago. She's never told anyone. Not even her parents. Not even her closest friends.

But now that she's here, she wants to tell Steve.

Only, Holly thinks to herself, she can't. This is something that she needs to talk to Gail about first, before she talks to anyone else.

"Yeah," Steve says, "she was in rare form tonight. Normally I'd say it's just Gail being Gail, but I thought she was actually going to throw something when Ma brought up that concert the two of you went to that fall."

She doesn't respond. What can she say, that she knows exactly why Gail was so upset? That clearly the woman was still angry at what Holly had done, at the lines Holly had almost crossed.

Steve takes a left and finally, Holly can see the police building in the distance.

"Wait," he exclaims loudly, startling her, "you're the girl!"

Her heart races and her breath stops and she can feel a cold pool of sweat gather at the base of her spine.

But Steve doesn't notice, his eyes are wild with the same sort of joy he'd get whenever he figured out the mystery first back when they'd spend Friday nights playing Clue! and that Sherlock Holmes game his parents had had for years.

"I can't believe I didn't figure it out before now. She was so weird after you and I broke up, and then you moved and suddenly she hated everything and everyone. But when she told me I never thought it could be you."

"She told you what happened," Holly asks, shocked at his reaction. She's always thought that if Steve knew, he'd be angry and upset. Not excited. Not this.

"Well," he says, looking over at her with a look that's half-contemplation, half-reflection, "she was drunk. She went through some things last year and after, sometimes she'd show up at my apartment half-drunk and needing just to be, you know? One night she comes by all upset—this guy she'd been seeing went deep undercover, just left without saying anything to her, and she spends the night on my couch drinking and talking about how people always leave her and then she says something—"

They pull into the parking structure and the fluorescent lights give his pale skin a sallow color.

It matches the swirling anxiety in her stomach, the heavy steak and potatoes they'd had for dinner no longer agreeing with her.

Steve continues after she tells him which level she parked on earlier that day. "It was weird, came completely out of nowhere. I mean, I'm used to Gail being hot one minute and cold the next—she's the most prickly person I've ever met. And I don't blame her, growing up as Elaine's personal pet project couldn't have been easy. But suddenly my drunk sister is crying into my shirt about how no one will ever stay and love her and apologizing for ruining my relationship. It took me twenty minutes just to calm her down enough to tell me what she meant."

Holly asks, she can't not. "What did she mean, Steve?"

"She told me that she'd had a crush on one of my old girlfriends, a serious crush. And that the other woman broke up with me because of it, but I never made the connection with you. I mean," he says, "and you may find this hard to believe, but you're not the only woman to ever break up with me."

She almost smiles.

But she can't, and something in her silence must strike him, because his voice takes an even gentler tone and he reaches out to put a soft hand on her knee.

"But that's not exactly what happened, is it, Holly," he asks.

Holly shakes her head and tries to fight the urge to cry, to run. They're parked right next to her car, she could open the door and get into her own in seconds, and then drive. She could drive and leave this town again and never come back.

But she's better than this, and Steve's story has lit a tiny brave spark in her heart.

"No," Holly answers him, "no, it's not."

* * *

She tells him the whole story, goes all the way back to the start of it. New York and Mindy McRae's sweet-smelling hair. How horrified and scared she'd been, not understanding what she was feeling. Or, maybe, understanding and not wanting to, denying it out of some sense of self-preservation.

Holly tells him about becoming friends with Gail, even though he knew that part already, even though he was there to see it happen. She tells him the little things that, looking back, seem so clear and undeniable.

And then, she tells him about the concert. The way she'd grabbed Gail's hand to keep the other girl from fidgeting, how she'd felt her stomach flip, and then flop. The hazy pleasure that filled her body as she slipped into the music, as she closed her eyes and listened, Gail's hand held safe in her own.

The way she'd slipped into a heated daydream, someone's gentle, loving lips on her own. How when she opened her eyes in the fantasy, Gail's face looked back at her, Gail's lips, Gail's eyes.

She told him of her shock and her fear. Of the trip home, and how they'd been thrown together by the crowd of weaving, weary people and the motion of the train.

She ends with the horror she felt. At feeling something, again, for another girl. Something stronger than she'd ever felt for him, for any boy. The horror of it being Gail, her boyfriend's sister, her boyfriend's younger sister.

He knows the rest. How she broke up with him when he got back from his ski-trip. How she was polite but distant, avoiding him at all costs, during her last weeks of the term. How she begged and pleaded with her parents to let her move in with her aunt back in New York and finish her senior year somewhere—anywhere—else.

How she disappeared into thin air, leaving behind his sweatshirt and a stack of cds. A pathetic attempt at a goodbye. At an "I'm sorry."

* * *

"Wow," Steve says, and she looks at him curiously.

"That's all," Holly asks, "you're not upset? You're not—all you've got is 'wow?'"

Steve tilts his head, thinking.

"Yep, just wow," he answers. "And no, I'm not upset. Maybe I might have been fifteen years ago when it happened, or ten years ago. But it happened a long time ago, and neither you, nor my sister, did anything wrong."

"Okay," he amends, "maybe you could have stuck around, Holly, but we were all kids. Who knows what would have happened. Besides," Steve puts on his most charming smile, "I think we all turned out pretty great in the end. You—a doctor. My sister—a semi-functioning human being. Me—a fabulous specimen of modern policing…"

* * *

Later that night, once she's home and showered and tucked herself into her big, empty bed, Holly thinks about Steve's very last words to her. The way he rolled down the window and called out to her as she was getting ready to back out of her parking space.

"And hey, Holly," he'd said, a curious look on his face, one that usually signaled mischief brewing in that trouble-loving brain of his, "I know you want to settle things with Gail, explain and make your peace, but give her a little space. She's like a rabid dog—tends to bite when she feels cornered. But don't worry," and there it was, that grin, "it'll all work out."

Laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and watching the lights from the street dance across it, Holly hopes Steve is right.

She'll just have to trust him.


End file.
